No Good News For Japan

Figures released by the Japanese Ministry of Finance last week confirmed that the country's economy shank in the final nine months of 2001 as output fell by 1.2%. Despite growth of in the first three months of the year, output as a whole fell by 0.5%.

Although the Nikkei and Yen have put in strong performances in the last few weeks, business confidence remains low and private capital expenditure is in decline.

As the country continues to try to come to terms with the huge amount of corporate debt, analysts believe that Japan's economic woes will continue and that we are likely to see a wave of corporate failures in the near future.